Election Result

New Margin: ALP 8.5%

MP

Kevin Rudd (ALP) since 1998. Former Prime Minister, having led Labor to victory at the 2007, but was dumped as leader in favour of Julia Gillard on 24 June 2010.

Profile

Covers 60 sq.km of inner-city suburbs on the southern side of the Brisbane River. Extending along the river from Morningside to Fairfield, Griffith includes the suburbs of Bulimba, Norman Park, Carina, Holland Park, Coorparoo, Woolloongabba, Kangaroo Point, South Brisbane, West End, Dutton Park and Greenslopes.

Redistribution

Unchanged.

History/Trivia

Created in 1934, the electorate is named after Sir Samuel Griffith, former Queensland Premier (1883-88, 1890-93) and Australia's first High Court Chief Justice (1903-17). This seat was the first of three held in Federal Parliament by Liberal MP Don Cameron, representing Griffith (1966-77), Fadden (1977-83) and Moreton (1984-90). Griffith was held for Labor by the popular Ben Humphreys (1977-96), but it was lost on his retirement at the 1996 landslide. Failing to succeed Humphries in 1996 was new candidate Kevin Rudd, returning to win election in 1998 as some political balance was restored to the Queensland electoral map. Rudd has substantially increased his majority since, tending to local constituency work despite a heavy Labor frontbench roll, first in Foreign Affairs and more recently as Labor Leader and now Prime Minister.

Issues

The LNP had initially nominated John Humphreys for this seat. He had previously been associated with the libertarian Liberty and Democracy Party. The LNP's ducking and weaving over its candidate for Griffith came about amidst doubts as to whether Kevin Rudd would re-contest. Rumours abounded that had Rudd announced he would not contest, a high profile LNP candidate would be nominated.

Assessment

Labor retain.

2010 BALLOT PAPER (7 Candidates)

Candidate Name

Party

ROMANS, Gregory

Liberal Democrats (LDP)

CHITTS, Hamish

WEBB, Jesse Alexander

Family First

DOCHERTY, Rebecca

Liberal National Party of Queensland

ROSE, Emma-Kate

The Greens

PUKALLUS, Jan

Citizens Electoral Council

RUDD, Kevin

Australian Labor Party

CANDIDATES

Gregory Romans

Liberal Democratic Party

37 year-old Romans lives in Greenslopes with his wife and two children and operates law firm Romans and Romans with his brother. Romans was raised in Coorparoo and attended local Marshall Road Primary School.

Chitts describes himself as an anti-war activist, unionist and a revolutionary socialist and is a candidate of the unregistered Revolutionary Socialist Party. He served in the Australian army for 12 years and is a veteran of the East Timor peacekeeping operation in 1999-2000. In 2007 he helped found Stand Fast - an organisation of veterans and service people that stands in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He states that is is 'necessary for working people to take political power into their own hands and build a new society because as long as capitalism exists, working people will be exploited and people the world over will be oppressed in order for the capitalist class to divide and conquer.'

23 year-old Webb is married with a young daughter and despite his youth states he has a proven track record of hard work and commitment. He is completing a dual degree in Law/ Politics at Griffith University’s local Nathan campus while also working part-time as a barista.

30 year-old Docherty works in finance and administration, for the last 10 years working for Hogan Brothers, a company with hospitality, education and property interests. After the LNP had intially avoided releasing her name or issuing pictures, Docherty went for the full glamour treatment with a photo shoot for Grazia magazine.

Rose lives in Highgate Hill with her partner and four children. She runs a national social business with her partner, saying it is dedicated to creating a new local, sustainable food system - one that rewards small farmers fairly, and connects city people to their producers. Rose states that she is a co-founder of the Brisbane Transition Towns Hub, former owner of Brisbane’s first Carshare Service, and an avid cyclist.

Pukallus is the CEC's Queensland State Secretary. A former resident of Mackay, she previously contested the seat of Dawson, but in 2007 moved to the more populated southeast Queensland in order to lead the CEC's state campaigns. She states that she has 'become a nightmare for those politicians who are betraying Australia' to which she cites her campiagn against Queensland Premier Anna Bligh for her privatization plans, and in Pukallus's 'relentless' public challenging of Kevin Rudd over the last two years for his service to the British Crown and the City of London. Pukallus states in urging Mr Rudd at a public meeting last June to adopt LaRouche's plan for a national banking funded economic recovery programme based upon great infrastructure projects, Rudd could only sputter in rage, 'I regard Mr LaRouche as right off the planet!' Pukallus states that she is targeting Mr Rudd, to hold him to account for his genocidal policies that are killing Australians to save the banking system.

Aged 52, Rudd is a native Queenslander, former diplomat and Mandarin speaker who worked as First Secretary in the Australian Embassy in Beijing before returning to work for Wayne Goss, serving as Director-General of the Queensland Cabinet Office 1991-95. He has many detractors in the state Labor Party, many believing his political judgement is too influenced by his bureaucratic background rather than any real feeling for the average voter. He was defeated in his first run for Parliament in 1996, working as a Senior China Consultant for KPMG Australia before being elected in 1998. A regular writer of newspaper columns, his views on foreign affairs were sometimes in conflict with Labor's former spokesman on the area, Laurie Brereton. Rudd took on the Foreign Affairs portfolio after the 2001 election, building a profile in a portfolio where oppositions don't normally gain attention, also irritating the government and several right-wing media commentators who took to disparaging him as 'pixie'. After sounding out his numbers to try and succeed Simon Crean in December 2003, Rudd eventually chose not to contest the ballot. Rudd demonstrated deft political skills through 2004 by managing to salvage something from Mark Latham's surprise announcement that he would pull Australian troops out of Iraq. With many in the party dismissing his leadership credentials, it was only evidence that Kim Beazley was making no traction that allowed Rudd's successful leadership challenge in late 2006. Sky-rocketing polls put Labor on track to win the 2007 election, though the eventual victory was narrower than had appeared likely earlier in the year. Good opinion polls continued through Rudd's first two years as Prime Minister, helped by chaos within the Coalition over both policy and leadership. The polls of both Rudd and the government dipped at the end of 2009 after the election of Tony Abbott as Liberal leader, and the failure of the emissions trading legislation to pass and the collapse of the Copenhagen climate change conference. Rudd's personal rating fell after the decision to dump the emissions trading scheme and the controversy over the proposed resources super profits tax. The issues came to a head in the last sitting week of June when Rudd was deposed as Labor leader and Prime Minister in favour of Julia Gillard. Rudd was not appointed to the new Cabinet but says he will re-contest Griffith at the 2010 election.